


Diamonds and Dogwood Trees

by the_warm_beige_color



Category: The Flash (TV 2014), The Flash - All Media Types
Genre: Character Study, Gen, i guess?, not really a redemption fic, the snarts are v hurt and they need some love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-09
Updated: 2015-11-09
Packaged: 2018-04-30 21:30:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5180450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_warm_beige_color/pseuds/the_warm_beige_color
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a city of doors and a pocket of lock-picks, every door knob fits into Lisa's hand like an old friend’s, but a tree trunk fits against her palm like family.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Diamonds and Dogwood Trees

Lisa loves the city.

She loves the tall buildings riddled with windows that line the bustling roads, and she never gets tired of looking out over the sprawling rooftops. She adores alleyways where you can hold out your arms and touch the brick on either side, where smells waft out the back doors of restaurants. She loves the apartments with the green shutters that sit on top of shops downtown, and she especially loves startling the pigeons. She can never get enough of the endless pavement under her bike and the infinite possibilities latent around every corner, behind every lock. In a city of doors and a pocket of lock-picks, every door knob fits into her hand like an old friend’s.

But a tree trunk fits against her palm like family. And straddling her motorcycle never feels like sitting on her mother’s hip like sitting in a tree always did. The view from the rooftops never compares to the one from Len’s shoulders, but the one from the top of the tallest tree got pretty close. Bracing both arms against the opposite walls of the alley never really ever comes close to the feeling of having mom and Len on either side of her like settling back into the fork in the trunk of the tree could. And the most brilliant diamond in the world could never match the dogwood blossoms her mother would show her.

She would never pick them though, because mom said a tree is a live thing, and unlike how the diamond doesn’t need the ring, nor the gold ring the diamond, the flower needs the tree, and the tree the flower. Lisa thinks of herself as a flower, her family the tree, their roots stretching down as deep as their love for each other.

Then mom died and Lisa thinks that, maybe, she isn’t a live thing after all, because mom was gone but Lisa was still here. They go to live with their dad, and in that place there are no roots to put down, so Lisa becomes like the jewels she steals: sharp, beautiful, cold, un-alive. Even when her father is arrested and she and Len can run away to wherever they want, they both find their home in the city.

The city is full of un-alive things.

Lisa learns to appreciate, even love, the un-alive things. She peers into fountains with their wishing coins shimmering at the bottom. She stands at the train station, listening to the train roar down the tracks, it’s breaks creaking and squealing as it pulls to a stop. She learns the differences between the roughness of bark and the roughness of brick, and almost convinces herself she likes the brick better. 

She builds her skates, and they take her higher than the tallest tree, making her think maybe it’s better not to have roots. A tree can’t fly like she is right now, high above the city.

Then she meets the Flash, and the Flash is a live thing. He is the first real live thing she’s been near since mom and she hates him for it, him and the Star Labs crew. But somehow Len and Lisa end up around their tree more than they could have anticipated, and despite the fact that they are blooming and Lisa and Len are diamonds they still cradle their branches around them just as if they were blossoms too.

Lisa looks at Len, and at this tree, and thinks that maybe, they can learn to be trees again too.

**Author's Note:**

> weekend_conspiracy_theorist and i were having feelings about Lisa Snart and I decided to fic it.


End file.
